In the current Long Term Evolution (LTE) standard for the measurement gap, the only configuration received from the network is the gap repetition period and the new performance groups that are introduced for inter-frequency/inter-radio access technology (RAT) measurement. One configuration is a normal performance group, and the other configuration is a reduced performance group. The carriers that belong to each performance group are configured by the network. Each performance group has a different measurement requirement to support an increased number of carriers in LTE. The user equipment (UE) can relax the number of measurements in the carriers that belongs to the reduced performance group so the overall delay of all the carriers can be reduced. This arrangement, however, cannot be utilized when the UE has multiple radio-frequency (RF) chains.
In further enhancements of the LTE standard, one objectives is to identify necessary mechanisms to enable LTE carrier aggregation (CA) of up to 32 Component Carriers (CCs) for the downlink (DL) and the uplink (UL). For carrier aggregation, two measurement performance groups may not be enough if LTE carrier aggregation supports up to 32 CCs.
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